The Amazing Race: "Real Fast! Quack, Quack!"Review

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Season 10 gets off to a running start, but is the race still amazing?

By Eric Goldman

It's hard to believe, but we're already up to the tenth installment of The Amazing Race. The premiere episode aired last night, and for longtime Race addicts like yours truly, it was fun to once more see Phil standing there in front of a new group of teams; to hear the dramatic music once more; and to laugh at the cheesy opening credit shots of the teams turning in tandem towards the camera - though they have far less of the teams do so these days.

Like most premiere episodes of a reality show, it's hard to get a full picture yet of the teams that will start to really stand out as time goes on. While the eye candy is appreciated, it seems a bit much to have both the beauty queens (Dustin and Candice) and the cheerleaders (Kellie and Jamie) in one season, but both seemed pretty friendly and not there to fill any sort of snob role. Of course there was a certain ditzy element, best shown when cheerleader Jamie said, "We both have the personality where we could have a conversation with a door knob." And then of course there was Kellie asking if Muslims believe in Buddha.

The teams began the race in Seattle, and were then on their way to Beijing, China, where they faced the first challenge; a Roadblock, that ended up being this season's requisite gross food challenge -- it's odd that Survivor only does challenges like this occasionally these days, while Amazing Race seems to do it more than ever now. The challenge was to eat the eyeballs from a large bowl's worth of fish. Can everyone say yum? However, while it was pretty nasty, it definitely wasn't as crippling as some of the larger portioned massive food challenges of previous seasons have been, which have left people in far worse shape.

Then came the big surprise of the episode; Phil had mentioned there would be some new twists this time out, and he wasn't lying. When the teams got to a location where they pulled start time cards for the next morning -- a common practice on the show that forces bunching, while still keeping some semblance of teams retaining their placement -- the last card left didn't have the final start time, but instead, an ominous "Last Place" written across it. When Sa'eed and Bilal arrived last, Phil showed up, and informed the likable Muslim friends that they were eliminated, despite the fact that it wasn't a pit stop.

I have mixed feelings about this twist. On one hand, I like the idea that doing this might really push the rest of the teams, who will likely feel they now never have the luxury of falling behind (though another mid-leg elimination seems doubtful). But the randomness of telling a team they are out in the middle of a leg is a Survivor type twist that like certain other cutthroat additions to the show, such as the Yield, never quite feels at home on The Amazing Race, whose core concept seems more "pure" than many other reality shows.